Totally anecdotal, but I work in 911 dispatch, so I have a bit of insight on people involving themselves in emergencies
It's really hit or miss.
Fires, gunshots, medical emergencies, fights, things blowing up, car accidents, noise complaints, aircraft crashes, I've probably taken a call about it, and those calls have come in from the person involved, a neighbor , a random passerby, their grandmother who lives in another state, or some random follower on tiktok.
And sometimes we get a hundred calls about the same thing. There are times I can just about answer the phone with "911, if you're calling about the [thing] in [place] we're already aware, help is on the way." And be right about 90% of the time while that thing is going on. (To be clear I don't do that, because almost every time I crack a joke about my job or vent about stupid shit our callers do, some self-righteous dipshit comes at me with a whole "if that's how you talk to your callers maybe you're not cut out for this job" spiel as if no one ever vents about the idiots they have to deal with at work.)
And there are other times where we get exactly one call about something serious happening in a very public place and we're left wondering if it was a prank call until our police/fire/EMS get out there and confirm that yes, everything is exactly as described or even worse, it's a total shit-show and all hell's breaking loose.
Sometimes it seems like a whole town is turning out to help people with a minor fender-bender, and sometimes hundreds of people are driving right by an overturned vehicle.
Usually, of course, it's somewhere in-between. We got a handful of calls about something but our phones aren't ringing off the hook about it.
Moral of my rant is, a lot of times people will step in to help or at least call 911 in an emergency, but you can't always count on that. The idea of the bystander effect is exaggerated and misinterpreted, but the core takeaway about it is solid. You can't always take it for granted that someone else is going to do something to help, so if you find yourself in a position where you can be the one who helps, you should do so.
Bystander Effect occurs when specific conditions are met and is not just a prevailing rule of human behavior.
The original incident that inspired this phenomenon was shown to be overly exaggerated to reinforce the idea of the inherently violent and apathetic human - which does sell well in newspapers back then and social media now.
If the attack was non-ambiguous, percieved as a high danger/emergency, against the social order/ group cohesion, and bystanders feels competent - do you think you wouldn't get help? Stop being sold that you are alone and everyone else are apathetic uncaring "humans", humans legitimately wouldn't have gotten this far as a species without helping one another.
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